Roses of Steel
by peace and joyce
Summary: A tribute fanfic telling the story of the lives and deaths of three extraordinary witches:Pax,Laetitia and Annabel Rees who lost their lives at the Battle of Hogwarts.OC.
1. The Three Graces

THE HOUR LULL BETWEEN FIGHTING

And so, he beheld in his view three corpses.

Three corpses for three women: three witches.

There they were, clear as day.

Well night actually.

But they were still, ever so peaceful, so calm in their immortal state. They were ethereal, haunting and unforgettable.

The oldest was in the middle. She cut a bold figure, blonde- beautiful in a regal state. She had died fighting, not running that much was certain. Her wand remained tightly in her lifeless fist. On her hand right side was the second, a mysterious figure. Her face had the perplexity of being both calm and troubled. She had clearly fallen in the Forest or similar: crushed twigs lay scattered at her feet.

Who were they? These strange, aerial creatures?

The third was still, from the hip down. But from the waist up, she was contorting, in distress.

She was still alive. A kindly girl sat opposite hugging her.

Seamus felt sick as he viewed the victim and comforter, not knowing what to do, what to say.

Gingerly, he approached.

The girl looked up from her patient and she smiled at him. It was a warm smile, that denoted fellow feeling- perhaps relief that at least someone was up and about; but her eyes glistened with tears she could not weep.

Seamus sat down opposite her, trying to avoid the patient's hysterical gaze and taking care not to brush up against the hands of the dead. Do ghosts have personal space? He wondered.

The girl brought out a beautiful lilac fob watch, which glinted in the light from the candles. She frowned at it, her lovely face splitting into lines of caution and worry. Caught in a fit of curiosity, Seamus strained his head to catch the ingrained lettering engraved on the back, obscured by the girl's fingers:

"Hec-

I-82"

Catching his inquiring glimpses, the girl shyly stuffed the watch back into her soot-stained cardigan. Ignoring Seamus, who in her opinion was probably doing absolutely nothing of use, she diligently set to work: opening her well-worn little blue case (whose fabric was stained with dust and, Seamus retched, blood) she began laboriously measuring medication- helping her charge to discreetly swallow it and vigorously charming the lifeless legs, feeling for reflexes and smearing an unpleasant greenish paste onto the joints, without a word of complaint nor a hint of disgust at the pungent, gagging smell of the paste.

At that moment, Poppy Pomfrey passed by the two and nodded encouragingly at the worker bee mentality that the girl had taken on.

"Well done, Heather," she said, "We'll make a Healer of you yet." The girl beamed at the praise. She must take her job seriously, Seamus thought.

Heather. So that was her name. It had not been a c on the watch, but an a. But what about the I? And the 82?

Bottles balance in precarious hands, Heather made use of Seamus' idle hands.

"Hold this." She commanded (shoving the blue case into his fingers), the first actual words she had spoken to him. Her voice was brisk and impatient, but not unpleasant and Seamus liked it. An odd mixture of scents wafted up to his nose. The smell of Potions classes, the smell of battle- and the smell of raspberries. How odd.

So far, the witch on the floor had been quiet, passive. Now, she protested, whimpering in pain. Heather sighed, and gave her a draught out of a flask.

"What's that for?" He couldn't help but ask.

"Calming potion" replied Heather, resting the witch's head with a spare jumper, "it should give her some relief from the pain, and give us some time to our selves: to reflect."

"To reflect? On what?"

"On the world, the future... old friends long gone." Heather sighed and looked down sadly at the calmed invalid.

"Speak of the past, then. Why are you here?"

"In this hall? To heal those in need of my care. In this battle- for revenge."

There was a long pause. Neither spoke nor moved. At last, Heather sought to continue the conversation.

"And what of you?"

Seamus. Having no answer readily prepared, merely shrugged and Heather nodded, understanding. Some words just cannot be said.

Considering the continued silence, Seamus decided to step onto a more risky tack.

"Why do you want revenge?"

Heather's face darkened and said only (in a steely voice)

"For my education."

In another person, at another time, that would be enough. But for Seamus, it was not.

"What?" he pressed further.

"Muggle born," hissed Heather. Despite the sudden harshness of her voice and countenance, her face kept a relatively neutral stance and her gaze was matter-of-fact. If she wanted further words, she could have said:"It bothers me, but it probably shouldn't. Others have faced worse."

Seamus felt an immediate rush of sympathy for Heather. What a waste: Healing talent denied official training. Heather didn't seem to mind so much now though; but he saw her bite her lip occasionally. Finally his attention was drawn back to the drowsy witch on the floor: what a pitiful sight! How wretched she was!

Heather checked her watch again and looked anxious. A sinking feeling entered Seamus' stomach and he dreaded the answer that he was destined to receive to his pressing question that he must ask:

"How long do we have left?"

"We have just less than half an hour."

Half an hour. That was all that was left.

In a desperate bid to change the subject, Seamus blurted out the first thing that sprang to mind.

"What's the 82 on your watch?"

"It says 1982," Heather corrected him. "It was my grandfather's watch and on my birthday his daughter my mother engraved it for me. I brought it with me, because it's the one item I possess that, should I die tonight, I want by my side."

At the mention of death, the witch retched and writhed on the floor, and their hearts were overturned with pity.

"Is there nothing we can do for her?" Seamus pleaded Heather.

"I've tried. But there's nothing- no cure."

"What is her name? What is her fate?"

"Her name is Annabel Rees, and she will die alone."


	2. Before We Went To War

APRIL-MAY, 1998

Annabel stood at the white cast-iron gate of the garden at 3 Chester Road, her mother's fine house on the outskirts of Shropshire. It was nearing evening, a time when dinner should be being prepared, but Pax Rees was on the white trestle table on the patio instead, with a large accounts book in front of her, in which she kept her state of mind intact: counting her coins and balancing the books. Her hair was up, her face in rapt concentration. Sunburn has not a concern, not with so much at stake. Ever since benign old Mr Rees had died six years previously, Pax was forced to govern her family's care more strictly. In the depths of war, only the Rees family and a handful of their kind were not struggling.

With Pax attending to their situation, Annabel was left with nothing to do. When her mother was worried, she could be irritable at best- a nagging shrew at worst.

"Letty" was occupied too. One of Pax's long line of money-making schemes in the tough climate was to capitalize on her eldest daughter's skill with the land and Letty's cunning streak to fulfil a quintessential need: illegal herbs for rebellious potions the Ministry deemed seditious. And so Laetitia laboured long on her corners of earth: the hems and folds of her off-colour skirts laughingly stained with luscious dregs of Letty's favourite natural substance: deep, wet mud.

Annabel couldn't ever help her sister with the watering, the pruning, the weeding, and the fertilizing. Letty liked her space and besides, Annabel hated dirt. All she'd do would be to hop precariously between the patches of crop: leading Letty a merry dance and cursing the mud encrusting on her summer shoes. No, Annabel had been banned from the kitchen garden long ago.

None of them had been able to find work in the last year. With a top NEWT in Care of Magical Creatures, Pax had been employed in the corresponding Ministry department, but had resigned from her post out of sheer disgust of the treatment of centaurs: majestic creatures that Pax had grown up with in Derbyshire.

Annabel herself had had a menial office job in the administration of the Floo Network: but an influx of candidates with more favourable Blood Status left the half-blood Annabel too, without a job.

And Letty? Well, Laetitia was, true, a noble, selfless and loving witch devoted to her mother (just as Annabel was) but had never been imbued with a work ethic seated in the office. In between the garden work that Letty liked, she fluctuated between part-time occupations in Diagon Alley or similar. Letty was the only Rees happy to be unemployed: she was very much her own boss, a trait she had inherited from her mother Pax.

Tragedy isn't a part of a person nor is it their choice or whole life: this point the characters of this scene denote. Tragedy is just a thing that happens: a tragedy of consequences.

It was nearing dusk and the sun bore low in the azure sky. The eve of the day was fast approaching.

A silver flare lit up the post-sunset light. It was a message from Kingsley Shacklebolt, Annabel's ex-lover, after whom she still pined.

Gravely, Pax rose to meet the message in silence. Annabel couldn't take her eyes off the silver lynx. Laetitia did not look up, but remained fixated on a patch of ragwort. Only a nod from her acknowledged the Patronus' presence. Wirth dignity, the apparition spoke thus:

"Urgent. Harry Potter in Immediate Peril. Prepare for Siege at Hogwarts Castle. Pax, I Know I Can Count on You and Your Daughters to Be There."

Pax's eyes glowed with a passionate fervour, a determination brought on only by a challenge. There was no stopping her. She had been heavily involved in the First Wizarding War, and age held no qualms on her return to the second.

Her resolution was an infectious emotion, aided and abetted by fear. A protective ferocity emanated from the mother lioness Pax. Her friends, her daughters' friends- closer in affection than kin were in danger and desperately needed their assistance, their help.

Annabel's devotion to Kingsley and her fear, Letty's passion for the security of the Hogwarts ground and the protection of the land and Pax's overwhelming sense of righteousness combined did the extraordinary, the nigh unthinkable.

It sent the entire family to war.

They put everything on the line, for what they believed in: their dogged opinions of liberty and a firmly grounded sense of right and wrong. These were gambled at the highest stakes; life and death.

The domesticity was overturned: the desire for comfort exchanged for the need of safety. The accounts books crashed to the floor, ink bottles smashed, tended plants trodden and chairs abandoned. All thoughts were abandoned. All thoughts were on Voldemort and the grim prospects ahead.

Three wands were drawn: oak, cherry, applewood. Three cloaks divorced from their hooks: red, black and blue. Three women prepared to go their separate ways for the last time: Pax, Laetitia and Annabel Rees. Their possessions gone, their ambitions cast into doubt, their lives in jeopardy but their love and their hope intact, never to be lost no matter what. Never to be destroyed, even after death.


	3. The Way of the Warrior

Time was passing rapidly, too rapidly for Pax's liking. Just moments before, it seemed, they had said their farewells and stationed themselves separately around the castle. Pax recalled her own words as if in a dream:

"We are all agreed on what we must do. Laetitia dear; join a group of defendants in the Forest. You know every inch, every angle of the landscape. You were born to till the earth: now you are called to defend what is yours and what you have a right to.

Annabel, my baby girl- keep to the stairways and the passages that lead to them. Do not let them pass you, Annabel, understand? The Death Eaters shall not pass. Not as long as we are there to block the way."

Annabel had nodded with brown-eyed dignity and Letty bowed her head in reverence.

Give me victory, Pax thought, give me victory or give me death.

And so they had parted. With love and fellow-feeling: at last the future had a purpose.

Pax had never regretted her decision to place her life on the front line. She was not a victim; nor a woman of regret, but a woman of decisiveness, a woman of action.

Above her head, the protective shield was crumbling and as the bubble-like sphere became more and more fragile only strengthened Pax's iron resolution, a steady iron kind that rust could never deter from the one true path.

Suddenly the defenders turned on their heels and retreated back to fight in the grounds. Defenders and Death Eaters alike raced for the castle. They rushed past Pax but, like the steady rock in the tumbling sea, she stood her ground.

The Death Eaters came like a plague, she thought: to her they were like big ugly rats that stole and scratched.

Three figures advanced on her and she instinctively stepped back until they had pushed her into a corner: she would have to fight her way out.

The three were Travers, Selwyn and Rookwood. To them, it had been so far so good- apart from the minor catastrophe on the covered bridge, the advance had been swift. They could be close to the Potter boy- but now Pax was in their way.

Despite being cornered, they saw her stony-faced, as still as a caryatid bearing a mighty weight.

"get out of the way, Mrs Rees, step aside" growled Travers.

"Never," was his response," For you have broken our sanctuary. For that I cannot step aside."

"You are 55 years old, Mrs Rees," leered Selwyn. "That's not going to help you."

"Then," spat back Pax, "My 55 years can curse you for not getting rid of me sooner."

"We don't want to use brute force" hissed Rookwood, as all four drew their wands "So uncivilized. But with you with must."

"Kill me then, traitor Rookwood. And to hell with you three men of evil, and all your Darknesses."

In the blink of an eye, they were fighting, oblivious to the chaos ensuing around them. Annabel, unable to help from her place in the gallery above, looked out over the passage and saw her mother fighting three on one.

Soon the tables were turned, and Pax was now the chaser and headed them off towards the great staircase. She was fast, and furious, this lioness that they had chosen to meddle with, and signs of her superior power quickly emerged. Selwyn screamed as burns scalded him all up his left arm; Travers' nose collided with his cheek; Rookwood narrowly missed a curse that created a crater in the wall behind him- almost taking his head with it.

But, slowly and surely they wore down her spirit through sheer outnumbering. She was stronger than them (and could have taken them out one by one individually) but after constant fighting: a familiar dreary fatigue entered her already tired bones. Her bad hip that had troubled her for years, that baffled Healers began to ache and get the better of her. The bright white light at the end of the tunnel was shut out forever.

For a moment, nothing happened. And then they cursed. The three raised their wands in unison and raised the cry that would end her life.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

The three jets of green light hit Pax in the chest. The impact blasted her off of her feet and she landed, crashed on her back at the top of the stairs: interrupting multiple duels.

Scarlet blood seeped from the back of her head and slowly, sickeningly her body rolled and tumbled down the stairs until it came back to their feet, puddles of hot red blood marking its descent, each drop crying out for the witch who hours ago had been a living breathing woman who meant business and who paid the price of it: a violent early death. Only now, dead and broken, would she be humbled.

The sight of Pax Rees' broken, marred body was one that was irreparable, irreversible and unforgettable.

Less than a fortnight after the Battle of Hogwarts, the bodies of Travers, Selwyn and Rookwood were discovered face down in a ditch in Cumberland. Their heads were shaved and on the backs of their heads were written only the words:

"FOR PAX"


	4. A Labour of Love

The wrong place; the wrong time; the right person.

"Lumos!"

The shaft of white light from Laetitia's wand illuminated the Forest and the grim faces of her companions. A small wizard near her elbow whimpered and she hushed him.

"Have courage, my friend;" she counselled sagely, "The night is dark, not Dark."

Whilst he puzzled over this conundrum, Laetitia turned to Kingsley and asked:

"So which side of the Forest will they be coming from?"

"Not sure yet" retorted Kingsley "The giants will most likely be coming from the hills [he gestured to the offending geographies] where it will be more advantageous for them to trample all in their wake. Best to post lookouts in the trees while Remus and I patrol the ground."

A handful of the younger, livelier ones volunteered and eagerly began to climb. But alas, the trees' spindly branches were few and far between.

Laetitia remembered, nostalgically, of her childhood time here- what an exciting and dangerous place the Forest had been then! The adventurous few she led in had fun and frolics around the edges, and gradually ventured deeper into the dark, wonderfully hidden forbidden undergrowth.

Now the Forest was a dark and cold place. Only death and sorrow awaited them there.

Nimbly, the middle-aged Laetitia scaled the tallest tree as ably as in her youthful days, and gladly shaded herself in the sparse coverage, more fruitful and varied in the higher canopies. She feigned a smile for the young lads down far below her, who cheered her on. She prayed for their survival.

Perched up above, Laetitia awaited the arrival of the foe. She shivered: it was cold up in the tree, so barren of life but those embedded in the roots. Despite the summer breezes, and Pax's excellent cloak warming enchantments, she could feel anticipating goosebumps creeping tauntingly up her lithe arms.

The height of the tree brought Letty closer to the shield. Letty reached out with one pale, cold hand (deathlike already) to touch its comforting embrace.

"Give me strength, Mother" she prayed silently to the crumbling horizons, "Give me strength to do your proud, even if it costs me my life."

Letty choked back tears as the shield crumbled from outward attack. The end was in sight.

And then they came, but by Merlin they would not conquer.

Letty shrank back behind the modest leaves. She blanched in her shame. What would Pax say if she could see her eldest daughter now- would she see a cowering violet? Or a (steel-enforced) rose? That blooms in winter, under the deepest of frosts, in defiance of all its wilting fellows?

Laetitia sat up straight. If they could see her, then they should see her proud. She was her mother's daughter through and through.

Subtly, she directed her wand down at the ground, and released the warning. The Death Eaters are coming, she whispered in her spells, the Death Eaters are coming and hell is empty.

To her horror, Laetitia realised her position. She was miles up, stuck in a silent tree, vulnerable with only one way: down. She could not simply stay trapped up in a tree while a battle raged before her very own eyes.

Slowly they advanced, while the Forest defenders prepared a surprise attack: the one

Macnair, the vile Macnair- looked up and saw Laetitia in the tree and she froze. There was only one way now.

With a shout, a huge sack's worth of apples, branches and nuts came cascading down on his head: knocking him unconscious- and, in the malay of the (seemingly natural) disaster- no-one saw Laetitia's silent Memory Charm eradicating any memory of her being in the tree.

"What in Merlin's name-"

"Shush!"

"But a huge pile of rubbish 'as just concussed-"

"It's nothing suspect. But there is something wrong with that tree..."

Travers turned and glared up at the tree. He fired a Killing Curse straight up at Laetitia.

With a start, she darted to avoid it and to her horror, fell from the tree.

In her fleeting, flailing moments, Laetitia's one thought was to protect the young lads who needed her to keep them safe. They needed her to keep silent.

In the seconds before she collapsed, she cast a silencing charm. These precious seconds cost her a life. And it was her own.

She crashed in to the ground, one hand tightly clamped on her mouth to prevent her scream. She winced and whimpered- powerless, unable to move.

With Laetitia in imminent danger from being trampled, it was time.

In a moment, they jumped from their hiding places and confronted Laetitia's assaulters head on.

Nipping and ducking, Remus made his way, slowly over to the side of the tree where Laetitia lay, in agony.

"Letty," he whispered, breathlessly."

"Go." She hissed.

"What?"

"Remus, get the others and go. Retreat until you can find more people. There are too many for us alone to fend off. The castle is better defended; tell Pomona that I am gone to the earth. She'll understand."

"Letty," was all he could say in reply.

"Leave me," she commanded, some vestiges of authority (ordained from her mother) left in her defeated voice.

And so they turned and ran, while Laetitia lay on her mossy bed and waited for death.

She smiled as she watched her friends; the energetic young defendants of the castle, growing smaller in the distance and vanishing into the obscuring mist of the night-time Forest.

Her smile vanished as she saw huge, ugly, grotesque creatures tumbling over the roots of the coming trees.

Spiders. Larger than Aragog's kind and infinitely more vicious. Unless they slowed down, the others had no chance.

It would betray her one last refuge. There's was no more escaping, no more last chances. She raised her wand and pointed it at the oncoming spiders. With her last strength, her mind compelled the words

"Impedimenta!"

The earth witch's power exploded with one last bang. With the force of a bomb, the fifteen oncoming spiders were pushed back, giving precious moment of escape time to the fleeing defendants who rushed to the safety of the castle.

And then she had no strength left.

When a spider's legs landed on her chest she was dead.

Laetitia did not kill anyone in the Battle of Hogwarts, or fight longer than a few minutes, but her sacrifice was remembered and the story told over and over. During the hour lull in fighting, her body in particular was sought out in the Forest by Neville and Dean Thomas. Her desperate face was covered by a clean white sheet, pearly in the dark, her quick thinking, cunning eyes that no longer saw- shut forever.

Neville pointed his wand at the tree at the foot of which she lay, and grey metal sign bearing the inscription

LAETITIA'S FALL

Immortalized the spot, for posterity.


	5. A Lonely Reunion

At the sight of her mother's death, Annabel's eyes stung with tears; the brown orbs glassing over with sorrow. Her mother was gone and whether or not her sister too had departed this life she did not know- though of the retreating defenders she could see neither hide nor hair of Letty Rees, and her young heart feared for the worst.

In her momentary daze of grief, a spell shattered her silence- and the wall behind her. Shaking her head, she raced down the steep stairs, the drops of bittersweet sadness splashing the remorseless stones. She was giddy and bone-weary from exhaustion and- not for the first time that night; the hall span and twisted out of focus.

Tripping on the staircase she came crashing to a halt. Vigorously she pursued Pax's gleeful murderers until they had vanished out of sight and out of range. Not hatred- never hatred, but a fierce grief and anger flamed amazement through her soul and an overwhelming determination; perhaps Pax's message of courage to her young daughter, told her never to give up or give in: that the only way was forward.

More Death Eaters burst through a side entrance; and Annabel was forced to separate her head from her burning heart. Battle was for the calculated and the dispassionate: to lose one's head was to be equated with losing one's life.

Annabel faced her opponents with a renewed vigour. It was not over yet- at least, not over for her yet.

Annabel's resurfacing brought a cheer from the onlookers and with a battle prowess seen only in her mother, the warrior-like Pax, Annabel meant business.

And that was why they went for her first.

Dolohov, goaded on by his previous murders, took her on. And like any other Rees woman, it was a challenge she could not resist.

She was good, they granted her that. She was inexperienced: apart from the seventh-years, she was by far the youngest there, but her power lay not in magic but in strength of heart. It was a duel to the death. It was aggressive and it was fast. At the heart lay a brutality, a natural brutality that was natured and nurtured. Annabel's nobility and honourable intentions may have softened its appearance, but the strains could still be seen- and heard.

He was cruel, vicious, twisted and evil- and his last murder was his worst. It would be this murder that would give him notoriety, revulsion- and no peace of mind. He was not content with merely a Killing Curse. He didn't want to kill Annabel, but he wanted to condemn her to death.

Overlooking all duel protocol, all moral pretensions- he reached out and he struck her. Blood spurted out from her mouth: repulsed by his very touch. With a slashing movement, he knocked life, breath and consciousness out of her. She crashed to the ground; the last Rees defeated and the damning poison creeping through her veins.

It would take her over an hour to die.

THE HOUR LULL BETWEEN FIGHTING

There were just fifteen minutes left, marked in the impossible, relentless unforgiving passage of time by Heather's antique, much-loved fob watch.

And Annabel was getting no better.

Her coughs came thick and choking through her desperate sobs. Touched with fervent compassion, Heather hushed her and calmed her patient's forehead with one cool hand.

In the midst of her dying pleas, there was just one name she cried for. At her downfall, helpless and doomed, there was just one name she begged to her side.

And he came for her.

Kingsley had been over at the other side of the hall. He had been avoiding Annabel's feverish, searching gaze, unable to look at her, should her pain break him.

But now he could hold out against reason no longer. With his trademark purposeful stride; but with burning, passionate eyes he made his way through the floor bound invalids to his old flame's side.

With her large brown eyes, not yet soulless, she wept for him and called out to him in his destitution.

"Kingsley! Please! Help _me_! _Save me_!"

Her body, racked and broken from sobs, paralyzed by her hellish curse, writhed and screamed in pain, her contorted face begging, pleading to stop the pain. Heather's efforts; talented and expertly executed, were sadly in the end for naught in the face of the Dark Arts; and Annabel was fast numbering her last moments in the world.

At the sight of her, Kingsley was forced to steady himself with Seamus' aid. People around were perplexed- he had never lost control like this before.

He said nothing to her, but conveyed what he could with one last gesture. He squeezed her trembling hand, wiped away her tears one last time and kissed her on the forehead.

And then he turned and left her; and did not look back. Her life, his involvement with her, that whole episode of loss and wrecked hopes was over. Never again would he lose control like that, never in public would he be so obviously attached to a woman. Despite her pleas, despite her continual shouting of his name, attempts to bring him back- he left her and tried to hide what he felt and had felt since they had met. Annabel Rees was going to die and he, Kingsley, would have to cope with that for the rest of his life.

The minutes ticked by, the sands of her time were slipping away from her. After she whispered his name one more time, she said no more. For the rest of her life, the minutes ticking steadily on, she was silent and passive. She allowed Heather to change her position, and she prepared for death.

She squeezed Heather's hand, and Seamus' (it hurt, but he was past objecting) as she was embraced by the thralls of death. For the last time, Fortune's wheel turned and Annabel was plunged into the abyss of death.

Tears were flooding her- from whom nobody knew or cared. Heather straightened Annabel's robes, arranged her arms across her still chest, a final salute from the dead. She stroked Annabel's hair, and covered her body with a sheet. The last of the Rees family, a noble and magical family was gone. Dead under a hospital sheet, in the Great Hall of the school they had known and loved. A lonely reunion for an extraordinary and unprecedented family.

No sooner had Annabel's corpse grown cold, but a loud cry was heard from the ground.

Their hour was up. Now, they had to face their destiny, just as Harry, the Rees family and fifty others had to do. They had to face their own mortality and the wrath of the wretched and unloving, those misguided in their purpose and without soul or peace. Not caring about manners- all everyday things were swept aside, Seamus took Heather's hand in his own, and nothing would release her comforting grip.

They stood forward and confronted their fate.


	6. Hey, Soul Sister

26th September 1998

And so, he beheld in his view a woman.

A living, breathing woman- a witch.

There she was, clear as day. And at that moment, hers was the only face he wanted to see.

A beaming smile spread like wildfire across her face and she ran across to him, halfway across Trafalgar Square –past the solemn lions, the stern columns, past Nelson himself- until she halted in front of him, breathing heavily.

He took in a face he had not since in almost five months. She was still the same, vivid Heather Field he had known- but not the bitter, silent witness to suffering. Her hair was shorter but thicker than previous, and her face was pinker. Her trademark watch still there, bouncing on a peach mackintosh trench coat that (oddly enough) went well with her grey beret.

But he had little time to view and mark her changes before a badge was thrust in his face- marked with a crossed bone and wand, it was the instantly recognisable badge of a Healer.

"You got it then?"

Heather nodded, beret bobbing.

"Kingsley was getting pretty desperate, did you hear? With so many Death Eaters renting rooms in Azkaban, there's been a massive shortage of good jobs in the Ministry. I got a recommendation from Poppy Pomfrey and before you know it- I got my badge."

She smiled again, and he could not help but smile back.

"So," she said, trembling with glee, "how does a healthy Butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron sound?"

"_Butterbeer?_" responded Seamus incredulously, "Would that be entirely suitable –Matron?"

"_Matron?_ I'm the youngest there!" she laughed, throwing back her beribboned head and shouting with mirth. Merrily, she poked him, gently but indignantly.

They were laughing when they passed it. Their smiles shrank at the sight of it. Despite the fact that only wizards could see it, Seamus doffed his hat and Heather bowed her head in reverence.

They were there. The three of them; immortalized in stone, a memory forever.

Pax was at the centre, towering over them. Her wand was raised to the sky, her robes rippling though there was no wind, her face alight with a unique determination. To her right, Laetitia leaned out to the side. In her left hand was her wand, in her right, vines and flowers creeped and bloomed around her hand and arm, delighted in her careful sunshine.

Annabel crouched to her mother's left. Her face was the most human of them. She was neither the Boudicca nor the earth witch; but a woman, a true woman. Her face told only of love and a hope that would never die. A little bird, smaller than a hummingbird, flew from her outstretched hand. The other subconsciously pointed to the stone erected beneath them;

PAX REES

1942-1998

LAETITIA REES ANNABEL REES

1966-1998 1972-1998

IT IS BETTER TO DIE ON ONE'S FEET

THAN TO LIVE ON ONE'S KNEES

R.I.P

"We won't forget them, will we?"

"I couldn't forget them, even if I wanted to."

Heather raised her head, Seamus replaced his hat, and ignoring many curious looks, they walked arm in arm and hand in hand, buoyed in their hearts from the tornado that was the Rees women.

That statue remained there, for generations after the war: a shelter for the oppressed, a reminder to those without hope. All because of three women from Shropshire; and their indelible mark on the pages of history.


End file.
